Muttahida Qaumi Movement

6 results arranged by date

3. Where Impunity Thrives

A climate of impunity reached a tragic culmination on November 23, 2009, when gunmen ambushed a caravan escorting political candidate Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu as he prepared to file papers to become a candidate for provincial governor in the Philippines. The attackers slaughtered 58 people, among them 30 journalists and two media workers, the largest toll of journalists murdered in a single act since CPJ began keeping track in 1992.

New
York, March 3, 2014--A Pakistani court on Saturday convicted six defendants for their
roles in the murder of Wali Khan Babar, a Geo TV
journalist who was shot dead in Karachi in January
2011, according to news reports. The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes
the convictions--the first
in the murder of a Pakistani journalist--but calls on authorities to ensure
the masterminds are brought to justice.

Among
the more 200,000 Pakistanis living in London is Altaf Hussain, leader of the
Muttahida Qaumi Movement. This powerful political party is widely thought to be behind the murder of reporter Wali Khan Babar,
a rising star at Geo TV who was shot dead in Karachi in 2011. His coverage
focused on politically sensitive topics such as extortion, targeted killings,
electricity thefts, land-grabbing, and riots.

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1. The Murder of Wali Khan Babar

On January 13, 2011, Wali Khan Babar, a 28-year-old correspondent for Geo TV, was driving home after covering another day of gang violence in Karachi. Babar was an unusual face on the airwaves: Popular and handsome, he was a Pashtun from Zhob in Baluchistan near the border with Afghanistan. For Geo, it was a rare boon to have a Pashtun in Karachi, and so the station planned to send him abroad for training to become an anchor.

Conclusion

The murder of Saleem Shahzad in May 2011 galvanized journalists across Pakistan in a way that few other events have. For a short time their power as a “union” was felt. They secured a commission of inquiry. They named ISI officers who had threatened Shahzad and many other journalists. They detailed those encounters in a public record available on the Internet. The resulting report offers a series of promising recommendations, saying in part:

Pakistani journalists are
under threat, and the public is paying the price. The most recent report from
the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan includes a detailed chapter on freedom
of expression, which ties growing suppression to rising incidence of violence
and threats against news media. Not coincidentally, Pakistan sits near the top
of CPJ's Impunity Index and other the global lists of most dangerous countries
for reporters.